Dear Girls
by Whitewash
Summary: Ein always had trouble picking favorites.


There was something about the relationship between Serene and Cierra that always made Fia and Lina feel left out. It wasn't that they were in a romantic relationship, really; it didn't feel like that, but they were closer to each other than they were with either of them, and the two couldn't help but feel they were really missing out on something...or even more than one thing. They felt, maybe, just perhaps...it was their lack of worldly knowledge.

It had been a while since Ein had left for Asgard to find out the truth about Ragnarok. As it was his duty as the last surviving Grim Angel to carry out the work of the gods, he had to find out what the gods actually wanted him to do. He promised he would come back to visit Elendia again, but he still hadn't yet. Fia kept on worrying that something had happened to him, and they'd never see him again. She didn't actually know, though. She was living in ignorance, as Cierra had told her once, and she wanted to know more.

Fia had always wondered what Sprites actually were—not quite gods, not quite humans—but somehow her grandfather had managed to keep her in the dark about everything. She learned how to fence and cook and clean, but she knew so little about her own people's history it was beginning to bother her. Why had she never even asked about it?

* * *

Fia's and Lina's two-room, two-floor house was small, carved into the branches of Yggdrasil. Warm light flooded in from the windows, bathing Fia's room in an earthy, golden glow. Aside from a neatly-made bed in a small alcove by the door, however, the room was messy. One would have to navigate through a maze of crates and cookbooks to get to the stove at the far end of the room.

Currently, Fia was doing just that. Her eyes swept over the room with a look of urgency, and she kept on muttering under her breath. She was looking for something...something that caught the light and reflected it.

Her sword. Rosier. Blessed with the power of the gods—the gods she hardly knew, in fact—she treasured it like few other material things she had ever owned before. Fia picked it up and weighed it in her hands, admiring the ornately carved, gold-leaf hilt and the sharpness she knew existed at the very tip, beneath the silver sheath. Thrust...stab...plunge if you must, but never slice. Unlike Ein, she preferred to fell her demons in one piece.

Cierra and even Lina had told her to just put it away and focus on the healing arts; they had told her Lina was an expert marksman and Cierra could incinerate anything that needed incinerating and even things that didn't, so Fia had no need to fight. Serene she heard less from, as the Arc was endlessly wandering. Serene, too, had decided that she had a duty to exterminate the demons that plagued the Promised Land, and would follow it through to the end. Not to say, of course, that she wouldn't come back to visit all her friends in Elendia.

Oh no, never that.

Cierra herself was living in the Wiese Forest. As a witch, and thus, researcher of magic and magical things, her work was never done. Serene had joked that if Cierra stayed any longer she would cause a forest fire, but so far Fia hadn't caught any word of any hazardous forest fires coming from Wiese. Sometimes Cierra would send letters to Elendia, and sometimes she would visit them in person. Once or twice she had even persuaded Serene to come along with her. Fia was clueless as to how she ever managed to come in contact with the Arc in the first place, though. They were just that close...and she was just that distant.

Yes... It had been a while since Hector's defeat and Ursula's passing. They were yet to see Ein come back, but when he did, Fia would be sure to invite everyone over to come celebrate his return. It had been months since he had left, but he _would_ come back. And if he didn't...

"Fia! Fia, Fia, Fia, Fia, Fiaaa!"

Lina came flying down the stairs, her long pigtails streaming behind her like a pair of orange banners. Glimmering brown eyes locked on to the other girl, and Lina stopped just short of the crate impeding her path.

Fia nearly dropped her rapier at the noise. Slowly, she turned her head. "Y...yes, what is it, Lina?" she asked, her voice almost pleading for Lina to just stop moving already.

"Lina can't find it," the shorter girl replied, hopping from one foot to the other. Her face was twisted in anxiety, a look that didn't quite fit her.

"What can't you find?"

Lina's anxiety was beginning to get to her. Lina was never worried, even when she should have been. Why now?

"The letter," Lina answered. "I can't find the letter."

"What letter?"

"The letter. Ein's letter!" Lina flailed her arms. "The last one he sent before he left for Asgard! I lost it upstairs and I can't find it anymore what should I do?" she asked, running her words into one another. "Fi-a!"

"Wait..." Fia dropped Rosier. "Wait, you _what_?"

"I know!" said Lina. "But I don't know where it is!"

"Lina!" Fia said indignantly.

"Fi-a!" Lina pleaded. "Help me find it!"

Fia shook her head and sighed, placing Rosier back into its crate before turning back to Lina. "All right. I will. Just... tell me what you were doing before you noticed you lost Ein's letter."

As they headed up the stairs, Lina related her story in some confusing mess of grammatical constructions that only barely counted as sentences. "...and so, we did find Lina's other ribbon, but then I forgot that I put down Ein's letter somewhere else 'cause Lina had been reading it last night and then... And then..."

"And then you couldn't remember where you placed it," Fia finished for Lina as they reached the second floor. "I see." She sighed again. "Lina, you have to take better care of your things!"

"But Fia's room is all messy!" Lina retorted.

"Yes, but at least I wouldn't lose something as important as that letter," she said distractedly as she looked over Lina's room.

"So do you know where it is?" Lina asked, skeptical of her friend's ability to find things.

"Well, your room isn't that big," Fia admitted as she stepped over a pile of dirty clothes to Lina's desk at the other end of the room. "But there are a lot of clothes on the floor..." She shuffled through a bunch of papers—sketches, scribblings, notes, letters—and found that Ein's letter wasn't there. "Are you sure you didn't drop it?"

"Lina doesn't remember."

"Well, there you go." Fia bent down and began to pick up Lina's clothes. "Now, let's get all of these clothes off the floor—you don't mind if I put them on the cot, do you?"

"No," Lina shook her head. She picked up a stuffed animal sitting on the floor and set it on a natural ledge formed by the wood, next to an old doll. "I was just reading it yesterday," she said sadly, staring at the neat row of stuffed things on the makeshift shelf. She turned to Fia, frowning. "I miss Ein, Fia."

"We all do," said Fia, sorting Lina's clothes on the large cot situated in the right corner of the room. "We all miss him... but he had to leave. He isn't one of us, you know... He's a servant of the gods. A Grim Angel."

"But do you actually believe that?" Lina suddenly asked, in earnest.

"What do you mean, Lina?" Fia left the skirt she had been holding on the cot to look at her.

"I mean..." Lina glanced down, then glanced up at her again, "do you actually believe that... Ein had to go away?"

"Well... of..." Fia struggled with her words, "of, of course he did, Lina. He was determined to find out the truth. He had to. He was created for that single purpose... Like I said, he's not one of us."

Lina frowned, her eyebrows scrunched in vexation. "Lina doesn't understand," she huffed.

"To be honest," Fia muttered under her breath, "sometimes I don't, either..."

Lina ran over to the cot and jumped on it, sending clothes flying. Fia bit back an outburst and busied herself with picking up the stray articles of clothing.

"I wanna go to Asgard," said Lina, watching Fia as she bent over to collect Lina's clothes.

"Wouldn't we all..." Fia mumbled back. She turned around to deposit the clothes back onto the cot and began to sort them into their proper piles again.

"Could we?" Lina asked.

"I don't know where Asgard is," Fia replied as she picked up one of Lina's skirts and began to pat it down, "so I don't think so."

Lina pulled up her legs together so that she was sitting cross-legged, watching with interest as Fia continued to handle her clothes. "But is it possible?"

"I don't know..."

"What about Cierra? Would Cierra know?"

"I don't know..."

"What about Serene...?"

Fia sighed and dropped the coat she had been holding. "Listen, Lina, I really, really don't know," she replied, exasperated. "All we really can do is wait until Ein comes back."

"But what if he doesn't? What will we do then?" Lina pressed, jumping on the cot. "Won't we have to go look for him?"

"Ein is Ein," Fia replied harshly. She narrowed her eyes at Lina, sad and frustrated and angry. "If he doesn't come back, then he doesn't come back. Right now, we don't have anything to do with him. We stay here, and we stay _out_ of danger. Nothing is more important than our own safety."

Lina swallowed hard, leaning back slightly. Usually she would have never admitted that Fia was right, but there were times when she just seemed so... intimidating. It hurt her to think that Fia had such a severe and disagreeable side.

"Just like her mother," the Elder would always say.

Lina had never met Fia's mother, though. She had no idea who Fia's mother was, and she didn't care. If Fia's mother had treated her the way she treated Lina sometimes, Lina didn't even want to know who her mother was.

The silence was cold and rigid. Lina sat stiffly, avoiding eye contact with Fia as she continued to pat down the clothing. Time passed by very, very slowly.

Fia pulled out something from one of Lina's coat pockets. It was Ein's letter, in a miraculously pristine condition. "Here it is," she said blankly. "You just put it in your pocket and forgot about it."

Lina approached Fia cautiously. "Fia..."

"Yes, Lina?" Fia looked back at her with no particular vehemence, just, maybe, a slight curiosity.

"Could we read it together, again?" she asked, feeling stupid for sounding so meek. "I just want to..."

Fia's eyes widened. She rubbed the envelope between her hands as if she was touching something that wasn't quite there, something ethereal. "All... all right."

Fia sat down on the cot next to Lina, away from the clothes, and took the folded letter out of the envelope to read it.

The letter was written in fine black ink with what looked like a good-quality quill pen. Fia believed the pen had been made from the black feathers Ein had picked up earlier, that he had saved one to keep for himself before handing them over to Soala. The paper seemed to be parchment, though it folded neatly.

The top read rather interestingly:

_Dear Fia, Lina, Cierra and Serene_

_Dear Lina, Fia, Cierra, and Serene_

_Dear Cierra, Lina_

Fia allowed herself a small smile. Ein was always fretting over who he was supposed to favor, and he had tried not to favor any of them, but sometimes things just...well, happened, and he usually ended up in some compromising situation afterward. This was a clear indication that, even after everything, he was_ still_ having trouble. "Girl trouble," Rose had joked once, according to Ein.

The true letter was just a bit further down. Certain words had been blotted slightly by tears, but for the most part, it was readable.

_Dear girls, _it now read.

_This might be the only letter you'll get from me for a while, so keep it in a safe place, all right? Make sure everyone gets to read it, too. It's important._

_I have an important mission to complete. It's a mission I set for myself, and I have to complete it no matter what. I'm going to find out what really happened in Riviera. Seeing as Hector deceived us all, I have to find out the truth about Ragnarok and the Grim Angels. Maybe then, I'll know what I'm really supposed to do. I'll have a real purpose. I'll finally know what I want out of life._

_I'm in Tetyth right now, and I'm just about to head back to Asgard. It's a long way from here, but it's far from Riviera in general. I'm trying to go the way Ledah told me about before, but it'll be tough since I don't have him anymore. That's OK, though; I know I'll get through somehow. _

_I know you're probably all worried about me, but don't be. We Grim Angels have a duty, but you all do too. You can't worry when you have a job to do. Rose tells me that all the time. _

_Maybe by the time you read this, I'll already be in Asgard. I want to take you all there someday. It's beautiful, too beautiful to describe. You have to see it with your own eyes, and I know you will. When that happens, I'll be with you._

_Trust me._

_Sincerely,_

_Ein_

Fia found herself crying again. Even having read it several times, the tears still came. She couldn't help it. Reading it was like having him there, next to her, telling her everything would be OK, and yet...he wasn't.

She didn't know. None of them knew where he was. Maybe he was in Asgard... maybe not. They just didn't know.

Lina looked at Fia. Her eyes were damp, but she herself wasn't crying quite yet. She just had this subtle frown on, watching as tears fell from Fia's eyes.

"Fia..."

"You know," Fia rasped, "I really do want to look for him. I do. I really do, more than anything else in the world. I don't know anything about Asgard or the gods or Ragnarok," she continued, shaking her head, "and I want to know just as much as Ein does. I want to know everything about him... no, everything about Riviera's history. About Yggdrasil's history. I don't know anything, I'm so stupid!" she cried, smacking the cot with her fists. "I just want to know... That's all I want to do, I _just_ want to know."

Lina's eyes slowly lit up. "Then..." she said quietly, "you think...we can go?"

Fia saw Lina vaguely through her blurred vision. "Go where?" she asked dumbly.

"Go and find Ein!" Lina chirped, throwing her hands into the air.

"Lina, are you crazy? I already told you, we have no idea where Asgard is!"

"Well, Ein was in Tetyth when he wrote this letter, right?" Lina asked. "So it has to be somewhere around there, right?"

"He said it was far away from there," Fia retorted, already forgetting her sorrow as Lina's absurdity took over. "He said it was far away from Riviera! Besides, where are we even supposed to go first?"

"Well, we can go look in the Magic Guild archives," Lina suggested. "Or, or we could go to Tetyth and look up stuff there."

"But aren't most of the books in Tetyth written in a dead language?"

"We can have Claude translate!"

"We can't bring Claude with us!"

Lina leaped off the cot and sprinted down the steps, words flying from her mouth the whole way down.

"And we can bring Cierra and Serene with us too, and it'll be just like old times!"

"What do you mean 'old times'?" Fia shook her head and followed Lina down the stairs, leaving the clothes behind. "Lina, where do you think you're going?"

"The Magic Guild, of course!" Lina cheered. She held her arms out as she stumbled backwards from the steps and twirled around in circles.

"And what do you think you're doing there?"

"We're gonna go to Wiese and find Cierra! I bet she'll love to come with us, too!"

Fia watched in horror as Lina picked up speed and shot out the front door. In panic, Fia eyed Rosier, grabbed it, and flung the door open, running out of the house into the evening darkness.

"_Lina_! Get back here!"

* * *

**A/N**: Credit to Feral Phoenix for telling me to put this here. I wrote this a year ago... Proof that once upon a time I was actually capable of writing something entertaining. Random, but neverthless it was supposed to be the beginning of an even larger fic. Of course, by itself, it's quite a neat little story. Read, review, whatever.


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